1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a holder for holding a flexible printed circuit board, particularly to a holder used in a plating process.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Flexible printed circuit boards (FPCB) have been widely used in electronic products such as mobile phones, printing heads of printers and hard disks. In these electronic products, some electric components including movable modules (such as printing heads for printers) may move relative to other parts and are advantageously connected to a main body via flexible printed circuit boards. FPCB can assure power supply and signal transmission in such environment applications due to their excellent flexibility.
Usually, a number of golden fingers are formed on a flexible printed circuit board for providing reliable electrical interconnection between the FPCB and electronic components. Typically, the golden fingers are comprised of a Ni nickel layer and a gold layer formed on the Ni nickel layer.
A typical process for forming golden fingers includes plating. Generally, in order to improve their flexibility, FPCBs are made very thin and pliable. As such, FPCBs are likely to deform during plating process. Therefore, rivets are conventionally used to fixed FPCBs on a metal plate. After golden fingers are plated on the FPCB, the rivets are cut off and discarded as useless items. However, the conventional process is time-consuming and, furthermore, it is a waste of rivets.
Therefore, there is a desire to develop a reliable and recyclable tool for holding a flexible printed circuit board in a plating process.